8B 


:_:i 


MASTERS     IN      ART 


3Sl  0vtto 


SPANISH     SCHOO 


NL 


'^MZ 


MASTEKS  IN  ART      PLATE    I 

PHOTOGRAPH     BY    DURANORUEL 

[257] 


335779 


EL  GKECO 

THE  ANNUNCIATION 

OWNED   BX  DUHANU-HUEIi 


MASTEKS  IN  ART  PLATE  II 

PHOTOGRAPH  BY  DURAND-RUEL 


[259] 


KL  GHECO 

POHTJiAIT    IJU  CAHDIXAL  TAVEKA 

MUSEUM,   TOLEDO 


MASTERS  IK  ART      PLATE  III 

PHOTOGRAPH  BY  OURANO-RUEL 

[261] 


EL  GHECO 

THE  ASSUMPTIOX 

AKT  INSTITUTE,   CHICAGO 


MASTEHS  IK  AHT     PLATE  IT 

Photograph   by  j.   r.  coolidge,   j». 
[263] 


EL,    GHECO 

POHTHAIT  OF   CAHDINAIi   SFOKZA    VALLAVICINU 

AHT  MUSEUM,    BOSTOX 


MASTERS   TJS^  AHT      PLATE  V 

PHOTOGRAPH     BY    EUGENE     GLAENZER     &.    CO. 

[265] 


EL  GKECO 
THE  NATtVITT 


MASTEHS   IN   AHT      PLATE  VI 

[267] 


ST.  BASIL 
PHADO   MUSEUM,  MADHID 


MASTERS   IN    ART      PLATE   VII 

PHOTOGRAPH     BY     DURANO-RUEL 
[2«9] 


Eli  GHECO 
POHTKAIT  OF  A   PHTSICIAN 
PBADO    MUSEUM.   MADRID 


MASTEHS  IJ!^  AET     PLATE  VIII 

PHOTOGRAPH  BY  DURAND-RUEL 


[271] 


KZ.  GKECO 

POHTKAIT  OF  CAKUIXAL,  UOX  FERNANDO  NIXO  DE  GUEVAHA 

iJKIVATE  COLLKCTroX 


MASTEHS  IK   AET 

■     PHOTOGRAPH     BY     DUR/ 

[  273  ] 


PLATE  IX 

ND-RUEL 


EL  (iHEGO 

HKA»   OK   A    MAX 

PHADO    MUSEUM,    MADHIO 


MASTEES  IN   ART      PLATE   X 
[275] 


Eli  GHECO 

CHKIST  DEAll   JX  THE  ARMS   OF  GOD 

PRADO    Ml^SEl'M,    .MAriHII) 


MASTERS     IN     ART 


I       (Br   X   t   t   0 


BORN    1548(?):    DIED    1614 
SPANISH     SCHOOL 


DOMENIKOS  THEOTOKOPULI  was  born  in  the  Island  of  Crete  in 
the  year  1547  or  1548.  It  is  not  known  whether  his  youth  was  passed  in 
his  own  Greece  or  in  Venice.  Venice  was  the  great  dominating  Christian 
influence  in  all  these  isles  and  Levantine  towns,  and  at  just  that  time,  when 
thousands  of  Greek  refugees  were  fleeing  to  Venice  from  the  power  of  the 
Turk,  it  would  have  been  natural  enough  if  the  family  of  El  Greco  had  been 
among  them.  The  legend  is  that  he  studied  with  Titian;  yet  his  name  does 
not  appear  in  the  extant  list  of  Titian's  pupils.  However,  his  countryman, 
the  Macedonian  Giulio  Clovio,  speaks  of  him  in  a  letter  as  "  a  pupil  of  Titian." 
However  that  may  be,  he  absorbed  the  Venetian  manner  simply  enough, 
and  at  the  time  of  his  coming  to  Spain  he  was  quite  Titianesque  in  style, 
although  even  as  early  as  that  his  work  had  its  own  strong  individuality. 

He  was  called  to  Spain  and  settled  in  Toledo,  as  his  first  work  was  there. 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  confusion  about  the  term  "El  Greco."  It  means,  of 
course,  "The  Greek."  But  in  the  right  Spanish  it  should  be  "El  Griego." 
It  would  seem,  however,  that  he  got  the  nickname  during  his  years  in  Italy, 
and  was  called  by  the  Italians  "II  Greco"  when  he  first  went  to  Spain.  The 
Spaniards  adopted  the  name,  gave  it  their  own  characteristic  article,  and 
called  him  "El  Greco,"  or  sometimes  plain  "Greco."  The  French  do  the 
same  thing  when  they  call  him,  as  they  always  do,  "Le  Greco."  And  we,  if 
we  were  consistent  with  them,  would  call  him  "The  Greco."  But  we,  in  our 
haphazard  English  way,  have  for  the  most  part  elected  to  call  him  after  the 
Spanish  nomenclature.  And  by  the  title  "  El  Greco"  he  is  known,  as  far  as  he 
is  known  at  all,  among  us.  "Theotokopuli"  is  rather  a  mouthful  at  the  best. 
It  was  the  pleasant  manner  of  the  Italians  to  give  nicknames  to  their  paint- 
ers, as  Masaccio,  Giorgione,  and  Perugino,  or  "Slovenly  Tom,"  "Big 
George,"  and  "The  Man  from  Perugia,"  and  so  one  may  suppose  the  name 
"El  Greco"  came  about. 

There  is  the  same  confusion  about  his  given  name  and  his  patronymic. 
His  name  in  Greek  was  KvpiaKdi  eeroKdirovXa^,  or  in  the  Latin  lettering  Kiriakos 
Theotocopuli,  Dominico  being  the  Italian  for  Kiriakos.  He  seems  to  have 
been  called  Domenico  in  Italy;  but  with  a  certain  perverseness  he  preferred 

[277] 


\ 


24  MASTERSINART 

to  spell  it  in  a  half  Greek  way,  Domenikos.  He  often  had  the  habit  —  affec- 
tation, if  you  will  —  of  signing  his  canvases  in  the  Greek  lettering.  Indeed, 
he  was  well  read  in  Greek,  and  in  a  country  where  culture  was  not  very  widely 
spread  he  must  have  passed  for  a  learned  man.  As  to  his  last  name,  it  is  in- 
differently spelled  Theotokopuli,  Theotokopulos,  Teotocopuli,  or  Theoto- 
copuli  in  various  archives. 

It  is  curious,  by  the  way,  that  he  should  have  been  a  Greek,  because  nothing 
could  be  more  different  from  what  we  have  come  to  call  the  Hellenic  spirit 
than  the  soul  that  animated  his  work.  Greek  art,  as  we  know  it,  is  based  on 
proportion,  measure,  balance.  Some  of  its  leading  qualities  are  serenity, 
reserve,  workmanship.  Now  the  art  of  him  they  called  "The  Greek"  is 
different  in  all  things,  for  his  work  is  violent,  perturbed,  careless  in  execution. 
It  was  written  that  he  of  the  ancient  classic  race  should  be  the  first  of  the 
moderns. 

It  would  be  hard  to  imagine  one  who  differed  in  more  ways  than  he  from 
the  calculated,  carefully  poised  art  which  we  call  classic.  There  is  nothing 
of  the  unthinking  serenity  of  Greece  in  his  types;  they  are  tortured  and  quite 
modern  in  expression.  Half  gods  or  Titans  at  the  best,  these  men  of  his 
have  little  likeness  to  the  Greek  gods  of  High  Olympus. 

No  doubt  the  gdnij  austere  city  of  Toledo  had  its  influence  upon  El  Greco 
and  upon  his  art.  He  had  been  accustomed  to  happy  and  joyous  Venice, 
where  things  were  seen  through  a  golden  rain  of  sunlight.  And  here  in  Toledo 
was  sunlight,  to  be  sure,  but  of  another  quality.  Here  were  gaunt,  grim  shapes 
wholly  Gothic  or  Moorish,  wholly  different  from  the  rich,  colored  Byzantine 
forms  of  the  beloved  Venice  and  of  a  farther  Greece.  And  the  proud,  severe, 
austere  Spanish  types  about  him  were  different  enough  from  the  smiling, 
ease-loving  Italian  faces  he  had  come  to  know  in  Venice. 

So,  in  the  end,  his  painting  became  strange  and  more  strange.  He  alter- 
nated in  his  work,  now  doing  a  picture  that  was  quite  "sane,"  as  the  writers 
of  to-day  like  to  put  it;  again,  making  a  picture  so  wild  as  to  puzzle  the  grim 
Philip  II.  and  his  court. 

It  is  the  test  and  measure  of  a  man  what  use  he  makes  of  his  ability;  how 
he  develops  after  leaving  the  nest,  as  it  were,  of  master  and  brother  pupils; 
and  El  Greco  met  this  test  strongly,  for  his  Venetian  art,  though  much  more 
individual  than  that  of  his  fellows,  §till  smacked  of  Venetian  color  and  man- 
ner. He  had  something  in  his  work  of  that  rich,  warm  Venetian  glow  so  often 
talked  of.  There  is  a  legend,  probably  apocryphal,  that  he  was  irritated  when 
his  canvases  were  compared  to  Titian  and  determined  to  show  that  he  could 
paint  better  and  in  a  different  manner.  However  this  may  be,  his  manner 
certainly  changed  greatly  during  his  stay  in  Spain.  It  is  more  likely  that 
solitude  in  Toledo,  not  seeing  other  painters  who  were  his  equals,  caused  him 
to  fall  back  upon  himself  and  to  create  a  style  almost  of  necessity  personal. 

Something  of  his  early  Venetian  training,  however,  no  doubt  persists,  even 
in  his  latest  work.  He  retained  the  trick  of  glazing,  so  beloved  of  Venetians, 
though  he  apparently  varied  it  by  scumbling,  a  method  not  so  much  used  by 
his  masters.    At  all  events,  something  of  this  thin,  sleazy  way  of  smearing  on 

[278] 


ELGRECO  25 

the  paint  in  certain  passages  was  adopted  by  Velasquez,  whose  earliest  man- 
ner was  quite  different,  being  in  the  heavy,  robust,  not  to  say  stodgy  tech- 
nique which  he  first  learned  from  Herrera.  The  big  picture  by  Herrera  in 
the  Worcester  Art  Museum  illustrates  this  manner  well  enough.  Greco's 
manner  is  quite  different  from  this:  he  is  always  glazing  and  smearing.  One 
notices  glazes  especially  in  the  finger-tips  of  his  portraits. 

El  Greco  was  in  more  than  one  respect  the  Whistler  of  his  day.  He  had 
much  of  the  latter's  wit;  he  had  an  uncommon  way  of  painting;  and,  among 
other  things,  he  had  Whistler's  passion  for  litigation.  Only  the  Greek,  more 
fortunate  than  the  man  from  Lowell,  won  all  his  suits.  It  is  recorded  that 
when  the  Inquisition  accused  him  of  controverting  certain  canonical  rules  in 
some  of  his  pictures,  he  had  the  courage  —  and  courage  it  was  in  those  days  — 
to  defy  it  and  bring  suit  against  the  all-powerful  institution.  Strange  to  say, 
he  won  his  case. 

In  those  days  there  was  a  sort  of  tariff  on  the  sale  of  each  picture.  El  Greco 
thought  this  unfair  and  refused  to  pay  it.  A  suit  brought  before  the  Royal 
Counsel  of  the  Hacienda  was  decided  in  his  favor.  And  it  was  proclaimed 
that  henceforth  the  three  arts  of  painting,  sculpture,  and  architecture  were 
forever  exempt  from  duties  or  imposts. 

There  is  no  definite  statement  extant  about  his  exact  technique,  but  by 
carefully  studying  his  works  one  can  arrive  at  a  pretty  good  understanding  of 
the  manner  of  it.  It  is  fair  to  suppose  that  his  early  style  was  much  the  man- 
ner that  Titian  taught  and  that  the  other  young  Venetians  practised.  Very 
likely  he  under-painted  in  gray  tempera  body  color  and  glazed  plentifully 
over  that.  Later,  he  very  much  modified  this  manner  and  came  to  paint  in 
what  must  have  been  a  good  deal  the  modern  manner;  that  is,  painting  in  the 
picture  quite  directly  and  then  constantly  repainting  or  retouching.  He, 
however,  glazed  much  more  than  is  commonly  done  nowadays. 

El  Greco  is,  in  a  sense,  one  of  our  modern  discoveries.  Sir  William  Stirling- 
Maxwell,  it  is  true,  speaks  of  him  as  early  as  1848,  and  at  considerable  length, 
but  with  quite  complete  misapprehension.  In  his  "goguenard"  and  robust 
way,  he  feels  that  there  is  something  interesting  in  the  Greek  painter,  but 
fails  to  put  his  finger  on  it.  So  that  any  real  effort  to  understand  El  Greco 
has  come  about  of  later  years.  Indeed,  it  may  be  doubted  if  the  mind  of  the 
world  has  ever  before  been  so  nearly  in  the  right  state  to  appreciate  the  Tole- 
dan  painter's  rather  bitter  and  evasive  charm.  He  suits  our  desire  for  novelty; 
he  chimes  in  with  our  sense  of  the  mutability  of  things;  and  as  nowadays, 
whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  we  are  all  for  personality  even  if  it  be  at  the  ex- 
pense of  craftsmanship,  his  very  marked  personality  interests  us. 

With  other  painters  the  personality  of  the  man  is  or  is  not  an  interesting 
trait.  With  EI  Greco  it  is  almost  the  whole  thing.  One  might  almost  say  he 
is  nothing  but  personality.  He  is  like  Perique  tobacco,  which  is  very  good 
for  criving  a  flavor  to  other  brands,  but  rather  heady  when  smoked  alone. 
Well,  it  takes  a  strong  head  to  enjoy  El  Greco.  His  flavor  is  too  strong  and 
of  too  bizarre  and  racy  a  quality  to  be  enjoyed  by  every  one.  In  other  men, 
personality  will  show  in  choice  or  arrangement  of  subject,  perhaps  in  a  cer- 

[279] 


26  MASTERSINART 

tain  rare  quality  of  color;  but  with  our  Greek  the  personaHty  cries  aloud  with 
every  stroke  of  the  brush.  It  is  this  that  has  kept  him  from  due  recognition; 
it  is  this,  too,  which  makes  him  a  particular  favorite  with  the  raffine  and  dis- 
cerning. 

El  Greco  was  the  inventor,  so  to  say,  of  the  "muted"  tones,  the  smoky 
blacks,  the  dingy  whites,  which  Velasquez,  in  a  measure,  adopted,  and  which 
Whistler  later  developed  into  so  taking  an  article  of  commerce.  That  is,  the 
Greek  was  the  first  man,  so  far  as  appears,  to  treat  tones  in  that  way.  In  the 
work  of  his  master  Titian ^he  whites  are  quite  frankly  white;  the  blacks, 
though  suggesting  color,  still  of  a  blackness,  as  dark  as  may  be  in  the  accents. 
With  El  Greco,  the  rendering  of  these  muted  tones  was  not  so  much  a  manner- 
ism as  a  perception  of  the  delicate  bloom  which  light  sheds  on  the  "local 
color"  of  things.  And  this  was  a  subtlety  of  vision,  a  perception  of  nuance, 
that  till  then  had  been  wanting  in  painters'  work.  How  much  these  qualities 
suggested  anything  to  Velasquez  we  do  not  absolutely  know.  But  we  do  know 
that  Velasquez's  earliest  work  was  hot  and  unluminous,  quite  in  the  manner 
of  Herrera,  and  that  in  his  latest  work  he  developed  those  so-called  "silvery 
tones"  which  are  also  among  the  distinguishing  qualities  of  El  Greco. 

Our  master  had  all  a  Venetian's  skill  in  landscape-painting  when  he  first 
came  to  Spain,  and  he  quickly  learned  to  render  the  peculiar  beauty  of  Span- 
ish landscape,  and  mostly  the  sort  that  is  seen  about  Toledo.  He  seemed  to 
love,  and  well  recorded,  its  austere  grandeur;  and  in  the  backgrounds  of  some 
of  his  figure  compositions  ar^^bits  df*  landscape  which  might  well  have  filled 
in  some  canvas  of  Velasquez.  fn3ee4^,  Tt  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  the  latter 
had  seen  and  studied  this  feaiiire'of  Tlieotokopuli's  work,  for  many  of  his 
landscape  backgrounds  have  the  same  long,  swinging  lines,  the  same  free, 
loose  manner  of  handling. 

It  is  a  strange  thing  that  El  Greco  should  have  so  well  assimilated  the  for- 
mula of  the  Spanish  type,  that  he  should  have  understood  it  so  well,  and  that 
he,  a  foreigner,  should  have  painted  Spaniards  more  "like"  than  they  could 
paint  themselves.  For  when  a  Frenchman,  or  any  other  Outlander,  comes  to 
America  to  paint  portraits,  he  makes  little  Frenchmen  of  our  cowboy  Presi- 
dents,, of  our  grim  captains  and  Chevaliers  de  Vlndustrie.  But  it  was  not  so 
with  El  Greco.  No  one,  better  than  he,  has  understood  and  rendered  the  cold 
morgue  of  the  Spanish  grandee  —  fire  under  ice.  And  he,  too,  has  well  under- 
stood the  Spanish  churchman,  and  his  portraits  of  various  Spanish  cardinals 
are  among  the  best  of  his  work. 

Another  quality,  which  one  might  say  was  invented  by  El  Greco,  was  a 
loose,  free,  almost  feathery  handling,  which,  while  it  injured  his  workmanship, 
did  in  a  measure  suggest  the  floating,  ever-changing  aspect  of  nature  in  a  way 
which  the  solid,  well-considered  draftsmanship  of  the  Venetians  had  hardly 
done.  Still  less  had  the  heavy,  rather  stodgy  handling  of  Herrera  and  his  ilk 
suggested  this  constant  mutability  of  things. 

El  Greco,  like  a  true  innovator,  felt  this  so  strongly,  had  so  acute  a  sense  of 
the  change,  the  "va  et  vient"  of  living  things,  that  he  was  sometimes  content 
to  let  the  form  go  unchastened,  if  he  had  given  it  the  breath  of  life;  so  that 

[280] 


ELGRECO  27 

some  of  his  creations  are  like  Frankenstein's  monster,  palpably  alive,  yet 
hardly  human. 

El  Greco  has  to  his  credit,  if  it  be  a  credit,  that  he  was  one  of  the  first  Im- 
pressionists, and  by  "impressionism"  one  means  the  word  in  its  broader 
sense  rather  than  in  the  more  restricted  meaning  of  painting  in  pure  color, 
which  is  most  often  given  it  nowadays.  For  he  told  the  scandalized  Pacheco, 
when  the  latter  visited  him  in  Toledo,  that  he  believed  in  constant  retouching 
and  repainting,  which  tended  to  make  the  broad  masses  tell  flat  as  in  nature. 
This  is  quite  the  doctrine  of  the  "tache"  so  beloved  by  Manet,  and  his  man- 
ner of  retouching  here,  there,  and  elsewhere  is  much  like  the  style  of  Chardin, 
Monet,  and  of  our  own  Tarbell. 

No  doubt  Pacheco,  who  was  father-in-law  to  Velasquez,  sometimes  whis- 
pered these  heresies  with  bated  breath  to  his  clever  pupil.  And  certainly 
Velasquez  succeeded  in  rendering  the  "apparition"  of  things  even  more  suc- 
cessfully than  the  old  Greek.  But  " au  fond"  Velasquez  was  essentially  a 
modeler,  and  more,  too;  he  always  tried  for  the  flowing  surface  of  paint,  the 
"fused"  look  which  his  best  paintings  haveo  So  that,  in  this  respect,  his 
method  may  be  called  quite  different  from  the  patchy  facture  of  Theotokopuli. 

What  El  Greco  may  have  suggested  to  him,  however,  was  a  way  of  looking 
at  nature  without  prejudice,  spot  for  spot.  The  Italians,  even  the  best  of 
them,  always  treated  a  man  by  the  way  the  forms  ran.  El  Greco,  and  after 
him  Velasquez,  were  the  first  to  see  nature  with  the  "innocent  eye,"  putting 
a  dark  spot  here,  a  lighter  tone  there,  as  they  came,  without  " parti-prts"  as  to 
their  exact  meaning.  In  El  Greco  this  is  tentative;  he  still  paints  along  the 
form  instead  of  across  it  with  the  light.  Yet  the  effect  of  his  work  is  more  im- 
pressionistic than  most  that  had  preceded  it. 

It  has  been  already  hinted  that  Velasquez  was  a  good  deal  influenced  by 
the  art  of  Greco,  and  in  an  indirect  way  it  would  seem  that  he  doubtless  was. 
If  this  be  so,  it  may  have  come  about  by  conversations  with  his  father-in-law 
Pacheco,  who  knew  El  Greco  and  had  argued  with  him  about  art;  although 
it  is  quite  evident  that  if  Pacheco  admired  the  Toledan  master  in  some  re- 
spects, he  still  highly  disapproved  of  certain  of  his  practices.  Velasquez  may 
have  heard  about  El  Greco  from  the  latter's  favorite  pupil  Tristan,  though 
Tristan's  work  does  not  much  recall  the  master,  being  heavier  and  made  with 
more  care,  yet  lacking  in  charm.  Or,  what  seems  most  likely  of  all,  Velasquez 
had,  no  doubt,  seen  El  Greco's  work  at  Toledo,  and  being  the  most  thoughtful 
and  analytic  of  men,  by  much  study  he  may  have  divined  some  of  the  Tole- 
dan's  secrets;  have  known,  and  that  was  his  great  gift,  which  to  take  and  which 
to  leave. 

Theotokopuli  is  said  to  have  written  a  book  or  treatise  about  art.  Whatever 
this  may  have  been,  it  has  now  wholly  disappeared,  and  this  one  must  feel  to 
be  a  great  pity,  for  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  the  views  of  so  independent 
and  unusual  a  painter.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  all  painters  have  not  written 
on  the  practice  of  their  art.  What  a  library  of  information  we  should  have; 
and,  more  than  that,  what  a  side-light  on  the  intentions  and  meaning  of  each 
painter  would  be  his  comments  on  his  own  work  and  his  description  of  his 

[281] 


28  MASTERSINART 

own  manner  of  working!  But  whatever  he  may  have  written,  it  does  not  now 
survive,  and  we  shall  never  know  what  the  strange  old  man  thought  about 
the  practice  of  his  art. 

But  at  the  very  last,  El  Greco,  though  interesting  in  himself,  is  most  in- 
teresting historically,  as  a  link  between  the  old  and  new.  He  is  one  of  those 
men  —  the  Impressionists  are  his  brothers  in  this  —  who  dimly  felt  or  divined 
certain  subtleties,  refinements,  nuances,  which  till  then  had  not  been  ex- 
pressed. Indeed,  he  felt  them  so  strongly  that  in  the  passion  of  their  rendering 
he  sometimes  forgot  or  slurred  the  old  perfections.  Other  men,  like  Velasquez, 
perceiving  these  qualities  in  his  work,  were  able  to  express  them  in  their  own, 
while  not  sacrificing  the  other  verities  as  he  had  done.  It  is  the  fate  of  inno- 
vators to  be  obsessed  by  their  own  discoveries.  Uldee  fixe  tortures  their 
mind  and  obscures  other  verities.  They  are  the  victims  of  their  truth.  And 
El  Greco  was  no  exception  to  this.  And  yet  they  have  this  reward  —  that 
they  are  sometimes  more  interesting  to  subtle  minds  than  are  men  of  more 
triumphant  and  absolute  ability.  Greco  is  not  comparable  to  Rubens,  for 
instance,  as  an  all-round  artist  and  master  of  technique.  And  yet,  to  certain 
minds,  he  must  always  seem  a  more  interesting  painter,  infinitely  more  dis- 
tinguished. And  where  he  often  failed  in  rendering  the  obvious  —  so  unlike 
Rubens  —  he  sometimes  felt  and  suggested  subtleness  of  expression —  nuances 
of  light  and  tone  which  the  healthy  Fleming  would  never  have  even  suspected. 
He  is,  to  use  an  expression  rapidly  becoming  banale,  a  painter's  painter. 
Millet  delighted  in  his  picture  of  St.  Ildefonso  and  had  an  engraving  of  it, 
which  is  now  owned  by  Mr.  Degas.  Zuloaga  and  other  Spanish  painters  are 
said  to  consider  El  Greco  the  superior  even  of  Velasquez.  One  is  not  prepared 
to  agree  with  this.  Yet  the  mere  suggestion  shows  how  sympathetic  is  the 
work  of  our  subject  to  many  painters  of  ability. 

El  Greco,  then,  was  an  innovator,  a  man  who  felt  and  suggested  many 
things,  yet  was  not  perfect  in  his  rendering  of  any  of  them.  Mr.  McCoU  has 
made  a  half-humorous  division  of  painters  into  Titans  and  Olympians. 
Well,  then,  our  Greek  was  in  some  sense  a  Titan,  if  a  man  so  neurotic  as  he 
could  be  called  a  Titan.  At  least,  there  was  nothing  Olympian  about  him. 
No,  he  was  hardly  a  Titan  or  even  a  half-god,  not  even  a  super-man;  for 
there  was  little  of  the  "  Laughing  Lion  "  in  him.  Rather,  he  was  one  of  those 
men,  fortunate  or  unfortunate  as  you  will,  made  for  a  time  in  the  future. 
How  lonely  he  must  have  been  in  Toledo,  even  with  Cervantes  and  Lope  da 
Vega  as  neighbors!  And  even  now  there  would  be  few  to  understand  him. 
What  the  other  men  thought  most  important  seemed  to  him  distressingly 
obvious.  The  things  which  to  him  seemed  all  important,  they  had  never  seen. 


[282] 


ELGRECO  29 


Cije  art  of  CI  0xno 


CARL    JUSTI  <DIEGO     VELASQUEZ    AND     HIS    TIMES* 

A  PROOF  of  the  attraction  Venetian  art  had  for  the  Spanish  eye  is  seen  in 
the  welcome  given  to  the  works  of  El  Greco.  At  the  very  time  a  Navar- 
rese  was  for  the  first  time  painting  in  the  Titian  manner  in  the  Escorial, 
Toledo  was  visited  by  a  Cretan  Greek,  who,  like  Antonio  Vassilacchi  of  Milo, 
known  as  I'Aliense,  had  studied  the  Venetian  style  at  the  fountainhead.  He 
was  traditionally,  and  doubtless  justly,  regarded  as  a  pupil  of  Titian,  although 
his  signature  is  always  in  Greek,  with  a  Latin  translation  of  his  Christian 
name  Kyriakos:  Aoyuijui/cos  Qeoro K6irov\os  Kprjs^TroUi.  This  artist  is  as  remark- 
able for  his  rare  pictorial  genius,  and  for  the  impulse  given  by  him  to  Spanish 
painting,  as  for  unexampled  and  in  fact  pathological  debasement  of  his  later 
manner.  Biographers  have  hitherto  studied  him  only  from  the  time  of  his 
arrival  in  Spain  (1575),  but  there  still  exist  a  number  of  authentic  works  be- 
longing to  his  Italian  period,  works  which  rank  with  the  best  productions 
of  the  Venetian  school.  Nobody  being  aware  of  his  existence,  these  works, 
notwithstanding  their  peculiar  physiognomy,  have  long  passed  for  Titians, 
Paul  Veroneses,  Bassanos,  and  even  Baroccis.  They  are  partly  portraits, 
partly  animated  gospel  scenes  in  bold  lines,  and  in  the  attitudes  resembling 
Tintoretto,  but  richer  in  individuality  and  more  solid  in  the  coloring.  Vistas 
of  distant  hills  beyond  the  marble-paved  piazzas  and  line  of  palaces  give  them 
a  strong  Venetian  accent.  He  is  also  influenced  by  Michael  Angelo,  as  seen  in 
many  of  the  figures;  and  what  is  stranger  still,  old  Byzantine  reminiscences 
are  betrayed  in  his  invention  and  grouping. 

The  Greek  signature  of  El  Greco  occurs  on  the  'Healing  of  the  Man  Blind 
from  his  Birth,'  in  the  Parma  Gallery,  of  which  a  modified  but  unsigned 
replica  exists  in  the  Dresden  Collection.  He  often  depicted  'The  Cleansing 
of  the  Temple,'  a  large  specimen  of  which  formerly  in  the  Buckingham  Col- 
lection, is  now  in  the  possession  of  the  Countess  of  Yarborough,  catalogued 
as  a  Paul  Veronese.  But  his  most  comprehensive  creation  is  the  'Disrobing 
of  the  Saviour  on  Calvary,'  formerly  in  the  Manfrin  Gallery,  and  assigned  to 
Barocci.  Christ  stands  in  the  center,  an  embodiment  of  sublime  resignation, 
His  large,  brilliant  eyes  turned  upwards;  to  the  left,  lower  down,  three  noble 
female  figures;  to  the  right,  a  man  with  the  borer  stooping  over  the  Cross. 
Behind  tower  up  the  heads  and  busts  of  the  thronging  troops,  the  captain  of 
the  armor  on  Christ's  right  hand,  the  man  seizing  His  red  mantle  on  His  left. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  work  of  the  Venetian  school  richer  in  studies  of 
character  than  this  'Disrobing.' 

That  he  was  at  that  time  an  eminent  portraitist  is  evident  from  the  half- 
length  of  the  miniature-painter  Giulio  Clovio,  in  the  Naples  Studj,  which  in 
Parma  passed  as  a  portrait  of  himself.  So  also  the  study  of  light  effects,  'The 
Boy  Blowing  a  Coal,'  in  the  Naples  Museum.  That  portrait  of  Clovio  sup- 
plies a  conjecture  as  to  El  Greco's  hitherto  unknown  career  in  Italy, 

[283] 


30  MASTERS     IN     ART 

He  may  perhaps  have  introduced  himself  as  a  fellow  countryman  of  the 
aged  Clovio,  who  calls  himself  a  Macedonian.  His  skill  at  miniature  is  re- 
vealed in  one  of  his  best  early  works,  a  replica  of  the  'Cleansing  of  the  Temple' 
on  a  small  scale,  with  sumptuous  architecture  and  ornamental  details,  in 
Mr.  Francis  Cook's  collection,  Richmond.  In  the  already  mentioned  large 
piece  we  see  in  the  right  corner  four  half-figures  —  the  aged  Titian,  Michael 
Angelo,  an  old  man  (probably  Clovio),  and  a  young  man  with  index  finger 
pointing  to  his  face,  possibly  the  artist  himself,  indicating  thus  to  whom  he 
felt  indebted.  In  any  case  his  youth  has  been  rich  in  experience,  and  Pacheco, 
who  made  his  acquaintance  in  old  age,  calls  him  a  "great  philosopher,"  full 
of  wise  sayings  and  author  of  a  treatise  on  painting,  sculpture,  and  architec- 
ture. 

In  1575  he  made  his  appearance  in  Toledo,  which  he  never  again  quitted, 
dying  there  in  1614.  During  these  forty  years  he  displayed  an  almost  bound- 
less activity,  filling  the  Castilian  churches  with  altar-pieces,  the  halls  of  prel- 
ates and  cavaliers  with  portraits.  But  only  in  the  earliest  is  his  Venetian 
manner  preserved.  The  first,  which  apparently  brought  him  to  Toledo,  is  the 
reredos  in  the  Church  of  Santo  Domenigo  de  Silos,  where  the  architectural 
framework  on  the  statues  is  also  by  him.  The  central  and  chief  piece  is  the 
'Assumption,'  now  in  Pau,  but  a  copy  of  which  is  still  on  the  spot.  The  ele- 
ments of  the  Frari  altar-piece  here  reappear,  but  already  in  the  Spanish  en- 
vironment. Mary  soars  aloft  with  outstretched  arms  in  ecstatic  emotion. 
The  Apostles  are  men  from  the  Toledo  mountains,  who,  like  true  Castilians, 
express  their  amazement  still  with  dignity  in  a  slow,  solemn  gesture-language. 
The  picture  is  thrown  on  the  canvas  with  surprising  power  of  chiaroscuro  and 
in  richly  varied,  deep,  glowing  color. 

This  performance  opened  El  Greco's  way  to  the  cathedral.  Invited  to 
execute  the  central  piece  for  the  new  and  spacious  sacristy,  he  resolved  to 
figure  hi^  'Christ  on  Calvary'  on  an  imposing  scale.  This  chief  work  and 
masterpiece  of  his,  occupying  an  honorable  place  in  the  richest  church  in 
Spain,  for  the  first  time  in  that  country  gave  an  idea  of  Titian's  art  —  his 
plastic  power,  his  vivid  light  and  shade,  his  naturalism.  In  his  capacity  as  a 
colorist  El  Greco  here  proclaimed  himself  king. 

But  he  was  unable  to  keep  on  the  high  level  of  this  work.  Drunk  with  ap- 
plause, unwarned  by  associates  or  judges  whom  he  might  have  well  respected, 
in  the  pride  of  his  triumph,  piqued  at  the  compliment  that  "he  painted  like 
Titian,"  he  degenerated  into  that  reckless  manner  in  which,  as  in  the  speech 
of  "a  noble,  unstrung  mind,"  only  flashes  of  his  genius  still  occasionally  gleam 
forth  in  those  marvelous  physiognomies  and  daring  strokes  of  the  brush.  In 
Toledo's  crumbling  eyrie,  isolated  from  healthy  influences,  he  sank  lower  and 
lower,  painting  like  a  visionary  and  taking  for  revelations  the  distorted  fancies 
of  a  morbid  brain. 

In  portraiture  alone  a  spark  survived  of  his  former  greatness.  Those  of 
Pompeo  Leoni  at  Keir  in  Dumfriesshire,  and  of  the  gray-haired  Cardinal 
Quiroga  (?)  in  the  cathedral  sacristy,  Valladolid,  still  give  a  good  notion  of 
his  powers;  whereas  the  specimens  in  the  Prado  Museum  are  unfortunately 

[284] 


EL     GRECO  31 

very  mannered.  In  St.  Thome  is  a  large  picture,  which,  strange  to  say,  passes 
in  Spain  as  his  masterpiece,  although  executed  in  his  worst  style.  A  group  of 
cavaliers  in  the  black  dress  of  the  Court  of  Philip  ii.  assist  at  the  burial  of 
Count  Orgaz,  whose  body  is  being  lowered  into  the  grave  by  two  ghostly 
figures,  in  whom  one  recognizes  SS.  Augustine  and  Stephen.  "Around  this 
painting,"  we  are  told,  "the  Toledans  often  gathered,  still  discovering  some- 
thing new  in  the  portraits  of  so  many  cavaliers."  And  in  truth,  at  sight  of 
these  stiff,  ceremonious  attitudes,  these  grave,  motionless  glances,  giving  the 
impression  of  an  assembly  of  apparitions,  one  must  fain  confess  that  the 
foreign  artist  has  a  good  eye  for  national  peculiarities. 

As  religious  enthusiasts  precede  the  creative  innovators  of  the  times,  this 
Iberianized  Greek  was  a  precursor  of  the  masters  that  arose  in  the  following 
century. 

SIR     WILLIAM    STIRLING-MAXWELL  «ANNALS    OF    THE    ARTISTS    OF    SPAIN' 

EL  GRECO  has  been  justly  described  as  an  artist  who  alternated  between 
reason  and  delirium,  and  displayed  his  great  genius  only  at  lucid  inter- 
vals. There  is  probably  no  other  painter  who  has  left  so  many  admirable 
and  so  many  execrable  performances.  Strange  to  say,  in  his  case,  the  critics 
cannot  fix  the  epoch  when  his  "early  bad  manner"  gave  way  to  his  "good 
middle-style,"  or  when  his  pencil  lost  the  charm  of  its  prime;  for  he  painted 
well  and  ill  by  turns  throughout  his  whole  career.  The  disagreeable  'St. 
Maurice'  was  executed  between  the  times  when  his  two  best  works  were  com- 
menced. The  finest  portraits  of  Tavera  and  Palavicino  were  painted  in  or 
about  1609,  which  is  also  the  date  of  his  delightful  'Holy  Family'  and  his 
offensive  'Baptism  of  Christ'  at  the  Toledan  Hospital  of  St.  John  Baptist. 
In  the  latter  picture,  the  narrow  draperies,  and  the  gleams  of  light,  thin  and 
sharp  as  Toledo  sword-blades,  produce  effects  not  less  unpleasing  than  diffi- 
cult to  be  described  intelligibly  to  those  who  are  unacquainted  with  the 
Greek's  style.  He  might  have  painted  it,  by  the  fitful  flashes  of  lightning,  on  a 
midsummer  night,  from  models  dressed  only  in  floating  ribands.  In  the 
Louvre  we  find  near  his  excellent  portraits  an  'Adoration  of  the  Shepherds,' 
in  his  most  extravagant  style,  in  which  the  lights  on  reddish  draperies  and  dark 
clouds  are  expressed  by  green  streaks  of  so  unhappy  a  tint  that  those  harm- 
less objects  resemble  masses  of  bruised  and  discolored  flesh.  Yet  the  perpe- 
trator of  these  enormities  sometimes  painted  heads  that  stood  out  from  the 
canvas  with  the  sober  strength  of  Velasquez's,  and  colored  pictures  and 
draperies  with  a  splendor  rivaling  Titian.  With  all  his  faults,  El  Greco  was  a 
favorite  artist  in  Spain,  and  his  pictures  were  highly  valued.  For  the  church 
of  Bayena,  a  village  in  the  province  of  Segovia,  he  executed  a  series  of  paint- 
ings on  the  life  of  Mary  Magdalene,  which  were  refused,  about  the  close  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  to  Cardinal  Puertocarrero,  although  his  Eminence 
offered  to  buy  them  for  5,000  crowns,  and  replace  them  with  pictures  by 
Luca  Giordano,  the  famous  and  fashionable  court  artist  of  the  day. 

Theotocopuli  was  much  engaged  as  sculptor  and  architect.  At  Madrid  he 
designed,  in  1 590,  the  church  of  the  College  of  Dofia  Maria  de  Arragon,  and 

[285] 


/ 


32  MASTERS    IN    ART 

carved  the  "abominable"  retablo  of  the  high  altar;  at  Illescas  he  built,  about 
1600,  two  churches  —  that  of  the  Hospital  of  Charity,  still  existing,  with  its 
good  classical  altar,  and  that  of  the  Franciscan  friars,  with  marble  tombs  and 
effigies  of  the  Hinojosas,  its  founders,  now  demolished;  at  Toledo,  he  gave 
the  plans  of  the  city  hall,  a  solid  plain  building  of  two  stories,  resting  on  Doric 
pillars  and  flanked  with  towers;  he  carved,  in  1609,  the  retablos  for  the  church 
of  the  St.  John  Baptist's  Hospital;  and,  in  161 1,  he  erected  in  the  Cathedral, 
by  order  of  the  chapter,  the  catafalque,  or  temporary  monument  for  the  cele- 
bration of  funeral  solemnities  for  Margaret  of  Austria,  Queen  of  Philip  iii. 

Few  artists  were  ever  more  unweariedly  industrious  than  El  Greco,  even 
in  his  old  age.  Never  idle  for  a  moment,  he  must  have  not  a  little  astonished, 
by  his  indomitable  energy,  the  slow  and  otiose  Toledans  amongst  whom  he 
lived.  Pacheco,  who  visited  him  in  161 1,  relates  that  he  showed  him  a  large 
closet  filled  with  the  plaster  models  of  his  various  sculptures,  and  a  chamber 
full  of  sketches  of  all  his  pictures.  In  the  course  of  their  talk  El  Greco  de- 
clared his  opinion  that  coloring  was  a  more  difficult  part  of  the  painter's  art 
than  drawing,  and  that  Michael  Angelo,  "though  a  good  professor,  knew  noth- 
ing of  painting."  Besides  uttering  these  heresies,  to  the  horror  of  the  Sevillian, 
he  explained  and  defended  his  own  harsh  and  spotty  style,  avowing  that  it 
was  his  practice  to  retouch  a  picture  till  each  mass  of  color  was  distinct  and 
separate  from  the  rest,  and  asserting  that  it  gave  strength  and  character  to 
the  whole.  But  in  spite  of  his  eccentric  style  and  opinions,  the  school  of 
Theotocopuli  produced  Maino,  Tristan,  and  Orrente,  who  rank  among  the 
best  Castilian  painters.  He  was  a  man  of  wit  and  some  learning,  and  is  said 
by  Pacheco  to  have  written  on  the  three  arts  which  he  professed. 

RICHARD     MUTHER  «HISTORY    OF    PAINTING' 

NOTWITHSTANDING  Justi's  investigations,  the  chief  master  of  Toledo, 
Domenico  Theotocopuli  of  Crete,  deserves  a  new  biographer.  For  the 
"pathological  degeneration"  of  El  Greco  seems  an  important  symptom  of  the 
great  religious  fermentation  which  at  that  time  had  seized  all  minds.  Pictures 
like  his  'Purification  of  the  Temple,'  in  which  he  appears  as  a  Venetian,  ex- 
press but  little;  although  the  theme  seems  in  some  wise  related  with  the  puri- 
fication of  the  Church  at  that  time  by  Caraffa  and  Loyola.  But  in  the  work 
which  introduced  him  to  Spain,  'Christ  Stripped  of  His  Garments  on  Cal- 
vary,' he  has  freed  himself  from  Titian,  and  now  seems  a  savage  entering  the 
world  of  art  with  impetuous  primeval  power.  He  displays  a  collection  of 
herculean  figures  composed  of  real  flesh  and  blood,  of  barbaric  bone  and 
marrow.  The  same  quality  gives  his  painting  of  the  'Holy  Trinity'  a  primeval, 
brutal  grandeur.  His  picture  in  the  Church  of  San  Tome  in  Toledo,  in  which 
the  members  of  a  knightly  order  solemnly  attend  the  funeral  of  Count  Orgaz, 
his  corpse  is  lowered  into  the  grave  by  two  saints,  while  Christ,  Mary,  martyrs, 
and  angels  hover  in  the  air  —  this  painting,  in  its  abrupt  union  of  actual  with 
transcendental,  already  heralds  the  visionary  painting  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  His  later  works  are  uncanny,  ghostly  pictures  of  exaggerated  line 
and  harsh  color;  which  seem  to  be  executed  in  wax  colors  mingled  with  the 

[286] 


ELGRECO  33 

mold  of  corpses.    In  all  respects  he  seems  a  strange,  titanic  master;  and  not 
until  more  is  known  of  his  life  will  he  stand  revealed  as  an  artist. 

C.     S.     RICKETTS  'THE     ART    OF    THE     PRADC 

EL  GRECO  was  trained  in  Venice,  and  in  his  earlier  manner  is  a  pure 
Venetian,  influenced  by  the  work  of  Bassani  and  stimulated  by  the  man- 
ner of  Tintoretto.  He  was  born  in  Crete  in  1548,  and  died  at  Toledo  in  16 14. 
This  painter  developed  on  Spanish  soil  a  style  that  seems  almost  more  Spanish 
in  temper  than  the  work  of  any  born  and  bred  Spaniard  till  the  advent  of 
Goya,  in  whom  all  the  national  traits  find  expression.  Outwardly  the  more 
central  of  EI  Greco's  work  seems  founded  entirely  upon  Tintoretto  at  his  wild- 
est and  most  mannered  phase;  his  figures  are  torn  to  shreds  by  a  wind  of  pas- 
sion, by  an  extravagant  effort  at  impressiveness.  His  method  in  portraits  re- 
calls the  method  of  the  Bassani;  but  with  time  the  fever  latent  in  his  art  takes 
a  form  more  acute,  and  in  his  Toledan  manner  the  Venetian  influence  burns 
less  visibly.  Realities  are  then  supplanted  by  a  series  of  conventions  of  his 
own;  the  Venetian  methods  are  finally  replaced  by  the  most  wilful  experi- 
ments in  form  and  color  and  in  the  use  of  pigments;  human  forms  are  twisted 
and  stretched  into  mere  symbols  of  themselves,  or  into  symbols  of  passion 
and  movement.  A  wish  to  be  inspired  and  original  at  all  costs  clashes  with 
the  staid  tendency  of  the  Spanish  temper,  it  is  true;  yet  where  out  of  Spain 
could  so  strange  and  perverted  a  vision  of  things  have  found  acceptance; 
when,  save  in  the  reign  of  Philip  11  ? 

His  pictures  might  at  times  have  been  painted  by  torchlight  in  a  cell  of 
the  Inquisition.  Philip  ii.  in  his  old  age  might  have  so  painted,  had  he  been 
given  the  faculty  to  paint.  El  Greco's  'Vision  of  Philip  ii.'  might  have  act- 
ually risen  before  the  recluse  of  the  Escorial  himself,  when,  after  so  much 
done  and  undone,  after  so  many  acts  of  faith,  he  lay  dying  by  inches  under 
the  black  velvet  of  his  bed;  when  under  the  horsehair  shirt  he  felt  the  approach 
of  eternity,  and  beyond  the  incense  fumes  and  the  smoke  of  the  tapers  stood 
the  goal  of  all  his  effort. 

At  times  Theotocopuli  is  a  sincere  and  almost  naive  artist;  in  portraits  of 
small  surface  area  and  unambitious  scope  he  is  quite  excellent;  at  times  his 
feverish  workmanship  has  the  "quality  of  its  defects"  (if  we  may  be  pardoned 
this  transposition  of  a  French  phrase  which  nevertheless  expresses  perfectly 
the  singular  case  presented  to  us  in  the  work  of  El  Greco). 

We  understand  the  power  to  disturb,  which  the  religious  revival  brought 
in  its  wake,  when  we  touch  the  art  of  El  Greco  —  a  sense  of  trouble  has  been 
detected  even  in  the  light  work  of  Titian  himself.  If  we  turn  on  the  art  of 
Tintoretto,  who  was  the  main  influence  upon  El  Greco,  the  tendency  of  agita- 
tion seems  to  spring  from  a  different  source,  even  in  such  works  as  the  '  Holy 
Supper'  at  St.  Giorgio  Maggiore,  with  its  fantastic  torchlight,  and  presence 
of  spiritual  forms  in  the  air  of  the  room  itself.  The  aim  of  Tintoretto  was 
sensational,  but  eloquent  in  its  sensationalism;  its  tendency  was  declamatory 
and  romantic,  tending  always  towards  an  emphatic  statement  of  dramatic  or 
romantic  effects.    With  El  Greco  the  imaginative  impulse  flickers  and  twists 

[287] 


34  MASTERSINART 

upon  itself;  there  is  even  less  balance  than  in  the  Italian,  there  is  even  less 
room,  less  breathing-space  for  sequence  of  thought,  or  for  constructive  vision; 
he  gives  you  a  sort  of  shorthand  of  Tintoretto,  and  later  on  mere  jottings  and 
hints  at  a  method  of  his  own;  at  times  his  figures  have  the  lithe  and  trenchant 
aspect  of  a  sword. 

The  color  of  his  whites  and  crimsons  is  ashen;  his  blacks,  vivid;  his  blues 
remind  one  of  the  blues  of  steel;  his  use  of  green  is  constant  and  unusual  for 
painting  of  his  time. 

Light  with  him  becomes  a  quantity  for  emotional  appeal  only,  to  be  focused 
or  scattered  at  will,  and  he  will  paint  a  sky  black  or  a  bitter  green. 

The  influence  of  Veronese's  early  manner  has  been  instanced  as  the  first 
influence  upon  the  aspect  of  his  earliest  and  least  individualized  works;  yet 
nothing  could  be  more  remote  in  temper  or  tendency  than  these  two  paint- 
ings. Had  Veronese,  with  his  unbounded  and  almost  monotonous  control 
over  plastic  eff^ect,  painted  only  the  strange  little  'Crucifixion'  in  the  Louvre, 
with  its  strange  green  sky,  its  strange  and  chilly  color,  the  difl^erence  between 
the  Venetian  master  and  the  Spanish  mannerist  would  still  be  immense.  His 
most  ascetic  and  monkish  canvases  degenerate  into  what  looks  like  a  parody 
of  himself;  he  even  at  times  turns  away  from  his  curious  palettes  and,  with 
blue-black,  white,  and  brown,  produces  a  yet  more  bitter,  I  had  almost  said 
discordant,  result. 

No  one  would  apply  to  the  work  of  El  Greco  the  statement  that  art  is  the 
expression  of  that  which  the  artist  likes  best  in  life;  his  choice  would  seem  to 
have  been  governed  by  another  craving,  and  to  have  been  of  the  nature  that 
makes  a  man  lean  over  a  precipice  to  see  if  he  will  feel  faint  and  dizzy,  or  a 
patient  touch  a  wound  to  see  if  it  will  hurt. 

This  estimate  of  El  Greco  gives  him  an  undue  importance,  perhaps,  for 
his  work  is  more  individual  than  original,  and  the  basis  of  individuality  does 
not  suflftce  for  art;  originality  must  be  found  in  its  essence,  not  the  mere  ex- 
pression of  personal  limitations,  as  with  El  Greco;  and  above  originality 
stands  the  creative  power,  that  noblest  expression  with  which  modern  criti- 
cism hardly  ever  concerns  itself  at  all. 

The  personality  or  originality  of  El  Greco  is  too  thin,  too  whimsical,  too 
arbitrary,  to  command  absolute  praise.  His  was  in  no  sense  a  constructive 
temperament;  his  originality  as  a  painter  consists  largely  in  his  power  of 
scattering  and  decomposing  the  convention  of  others. 

His  human  type,  when  he  condescends  in  his  pictures  to  give  attention  to 
this,  is  a  low  one,  much  lower  than  Tintoretto's;  a  dilated  eye  does  duty  for 
expression.  The  '  Descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit,'  still  catalogued  at  the  Prado, 
shows  this  unwillingness  to  realize  things  plastically,  and  his  trust  to  a  wild 
form  of  improvisation;  yet  the  picture  attracts  by  its  flame-like  aspect.  The 
'Baptism  of  Christ'  in  the  Prado  is  a  more  responsible  work.  One  detects  in 
the  extravagant  mannerism  of  the  forms  an  idealizing  tendency,  notably  in 
the  delicate  hands  and  long  feet;  the  angels,  with  their  doll-like  faces,  support 
a  large  crimson  mantle,  in  itself  a  delightful  "painter's  motive,"  forming  as  it 
does  a  sort  of  niche  for  the  figure  of  the  Saviour;  the  St.  John  shows  a  sensi- 

[288] 


ELGRECO  35 

tiveness  of  type  we  find  sometimes  in  El  Greco's  portraits;  at  his  feet  is  the 
stump  of  a  felled  tree  and  an  axe;  but  where  the  art-lover  is  charmed  out  of 
criticism  is  in  the  treatment  of  the  heaven  above,  in  which  we  forget  the  small, 
doll-like  faces  of  the  spirits  in  the  visionary  and  instantaneous  effect  of  the 
whole,  the  blotches  of  vivid  electric  cloud  in  which  dart  and  shimmer  the 
flame-like  forms  of  little  baby  angels,  each  in  its  little  world  of  cloud  and 
light;  they  are  like  birds  who,  thrown  up  into  the  air,  tumble  and  quiver  be- 
fore regaining  the  use  of  their  wings. 

We  find  further  evidence  of  painter's  delight  in  the  mottled  sky  and  the 
three  white  mitres  of  the  *St.  Bernard'  hanging  near.  In  the  fine  early  pic- 
ture of  the  'Ascension,'  painted  when  El  Greco  was  twenty-three  (lent  by  the 
Infanta  Isabella  of  Bourbon),  we  notice  a  more  careful,  a  more  thoroughly 
worked-out  attempt  at  that  originality  El  Greco  strove  for  all  his  life  under 
the  accusation  of  being  an  imitator  of  Titian  and  Tintoretto;  in  this  and  in 
the  'Trinity'  he  produced  there  is  more  variety  in  the  heads,  a  more  plastic 
use  of  the  brush,  a  more  vivid  use  of  color  —  green,  crimson,  straw-yellow, 
blue,  orange,  lavender  —  and  a  sort  of  vinous  and  stain-like  quality  in  the 
paint  itself.  Velasquez  remembered  the  color  of  this  work  in  his  '  Coronation 
of  the  Virgin.' 

We  cannot  deny  to  El  Greco  a  certain  visionary  quality:  a  poor  replica 
hangs  in  the  Prado  of  his  '  Burial  of  the  Count  of  Organza,'  the  original  being 
at  Toledo.  This  picture  shares  with  his  'Theban  Legion'  at  the  Escorial  the 
claim  to  be  El  Greco's  most  typical  work.  Against  a  space  of  abstract  color 
flickers  the  light  of  a  few  torches,  which  illumine  a  row  of  vivid  portrait  heads, 
cut  off  by  their  white  ruffs  and  isolated  in  space;  seen  out  of  relation  to  each 
other,  yet  dominated  by  a  sense  of  awe  and  piety.  Some  are  ecstatic,  others 
self-absorbed;  below  this  band  of  fervent  faces  glimmers  the  exaggerated 
whiteness,  the  exaggerated  elegance,  of  a  few  hands;  and  the  central  group, 
at  first  dominated  by  the  row  of  spectators,  emerges  from  the  gloom  in  flashes 
of  gold,  white,  steel-blue,  as  the  noble  figure  of  an  old  bishop  bends  beneath 
the  weight  of  a  man  in  armor  whom  they  are  about  to  entomb,  and  who  is 
supported  also  by  a  deacon  in  embroidered  vestments.  The  group  is  ad- 
mirably invented,  full  of  a  passionate  awe  and  tenderness;  the  shroud  of  gray- 
white  against  the  black  armor,  the  large  white  mitre  of  the  bishop,  are  all  ad- 
mirable "painter's  inventions."  The  upper  part  of  the  picture  is  a  confused 
and  swaying  mass  of  angels  and  holy  persons  drifting  on  large  strata  of  strange 
cloud-forms,  lit  from  within.  El  Greco's  human  type,  even  in  his  portraits, 
is  odd,  fervent,  pointed  in  brow  and  lacking  a  back  and  base  to  the  cranium; 
there  are  fervor  and  elegance  in  his  work,  which  on  the  average  is  whimsical 
and  hasty. 

This  decadent  artist  has  at  least  one  virtue,  which  we  find  in  several  de- 
cadents —  that  in  aim,  if  fatuous,  he  was  not  commonplace.  Sensational, 
impatient,  and  extravagant  as  he  is,  El  Greco  never  meant  to  appeal  to  com- 
mon and  comfortable  ideals.  He  also  saves  us  from  that  somewhat  unthink- 
ing and  unemotional  point  of  view  which  marks  the  decadent  but  by  no  means 
unattractive  or  unimportant  work  of  mannerists  such  as  the  Italians  Parmi- 

eianino  and  Baroccio. 

[289] 


36  MASTERS     IN    ART 

But  what  is  decadence  ?  Below  the  surface  of  much  decadent  art  lies,  un- 
balanced, it  is  true,  a  wish  to  stimulate  and  charm,  such  as  is  ever  present  in 
classical  art  itself.  I  am  reminded  of  the  confession  of  a  drunkard,  whose 
excuse  for  getting  drunk  was  not  that  he  liked  drinking,  but  that  he  liked  to 
"see  things  more  interesting  than  they  were."  In  this  sense  El  Greco  wished 
to  make  things  seem  "more  interesting  than  they  were;"  but,  unlike  most 
decadents,  his  method  was  limited  and  often  insufficient,  and,  like  Blake  the 
mystic,  he  was  not  always  as  much  under  the  influence  of  his  artistic  or  spirit- 
ual Daemon  as  he  imagined.  With  El  Greco  the  spectator  is  invited  to  a  dis- 
play of  artistic  fireworks  which  does  not  always  come  off,  but  unmistakably 
smokes  and  sputters. 

We  have  not  apphed  the  word  "decadent"  to  El  Greco  to  indicate  a  merely 
decaying  and  dereHct  type,  such  as  each  school  and  nation  may  show  at 
times  —  men  who  are  merely  bad  artists  and  poor  craftsmen;  in  this  sense  the 
popular  EngHsh  painter  may  be  a  decadent,  however  "popular"  or  "whole- 
some" his  aim;  whether  he  paints  'Cattle  in  a  Surrey  Field'  or  'Well-known 
Footsteps.'  El  Greco  belongs  to  a  genuine  type  of  artists  in  whom  the  proper 
balance  between  aim  and  achievement  is  disturbed  by  something  feverish 
and  lacking  in  the  sense  of  intellectual  responsibility.  He  belongs  to  a  class 
of  artists  in  whom  we  find,  on  a  different  level,  even  such  great  names  as 
Botticelli  and  Tintoretto  —  men  in  whom  the  romantic  effort  oversets  or 
strains  the  plastic  sense  to  a  dangerous  point,  a  hasty  effort  not  always  suffi- 
cient or  significant;  and  beneath  these  great  artists  we  may  still  admire  lesser 
men  such  as  Filippino  Lippi,  Bazzi,  and  those  later  mannerists  in  paint  and 
form  such  as  Bassani,  whose  efforts  were  insufficient;  Parmigianino,  who  is 
fatuous  and  monotonous;  and  Baroccio,  who  inherited  some  of  the  charm  and 
all  the  weakness  of  Correggio.  With  these  painters  we  must  place  El  Greco. 
In  the  art  of  Theotocopuli,  who  was  Spanish  only  by  adoption,  we  notice  some 
of  the  extravagant  intensity  latent  in  the  Spanish  character  itself,  which 
Spanish  painting  hardly  ever  reflected. 

PAUL     LAFOND  «LES     ARTS'    OCTOBER,     1906 

HIS  work  is  all  passion.  His  quality  of  generalization  makes  him  appre- 
ciate the  eternal  forms  of  nature.  His  evoking  soul  has  rendered  in 
powerful  and  subtle  interpretations  the  expression  of  the  Idea,  the  significance 
of  the  Word.  El  Greco  is  a  sublime  thinker,  who  by  means  of  imagery  has  ex- 
pressed beings  and  states  of  soul  —  beings,  too,  as  complicated  as  we;  states  of 
souls  as  troubled  as  ours.  His  work  is  of  the  most  emotional  and  captivating 
that  art  has  produced.  The  real  master  is  he  who  creates  a  type,  a  manner; 
and  by  this  one  should  understand  a  new  way  of  rendering  that  nature  which 
does  not  itself  change;  a  new  way  of  expressing  feelings  old  as  the  world,  and 
consequently  enriching  the  domain  of  art  by  a  hidden  treasure.  El  Greco  is 
one  of  these  privileged  beings.  His  work  brings  with  it  surprises  and  sensa- 
tions till  now  unknown.  Although  wholly  saturated  in  nature,  it  fascinates 
and  conquers  as  though  a  new  thing. 

To  this  primordial  quality  he  adds  an  intense  emotion,    He,  an  intelli- 

[290] 


EL     GRECO  37 

gence  essentially  emancipated,  lifts  spirits  above  this  material  appetite  and 
joys.  A  sincere  and  refined  melancholy  rises  from  his  productions,  as  from 
those  of  our  own  Delacroix.  Before  these  one  cannot  choose  but  be  caught 
and  troubled  by  their  depth,  their  nobility,  their  vivacity  of  expression,  their 
grandeur.  His  figures,  translucid  and  elongated  out  of  all  measure,  of  super- 
human life,  in  stretched-out  attitudes,  with  crumpled  draperies,  shock  us 
like  apparitions.  His  unhealthy  tones,  running  from  crude  white  to  absolute 
black;  his  harmonies,  almost  too  acute  and  capricious  and  jumbled  (accords 
which  come  near  to  dissonance),  give  a  fever,  as  it  were.  The  master  has  an 
indefinable  sense  of  the  Invisible  Life  and  what  lies  beyond,  mingles  in  his 
figures  in  a  bizarre  fashion  which  leaves  a  disquieting  obsession.  They  dis- 
concert, they  astonish,  they  captivate. 

More  than  any  one,  save  Rembrandt,  does  he  have  the  sense  of  what  is 
dramatic  —  but  dramatic  movement  coming  from  simple  action,  ever  heroic 
or  noble,  without  complication;  something  outside  what  happens  to  be  pic- 
turesque for  the  moment.  It  is  from  this  in  great  part  that  he  draws  his  mys- 
terious power. 

Few  masters  have  pushed  the  science  of  composition  further,  though  all 
the  while  dissimilating  it.  In  his  work  the  groups  are  balanced  or  opposed 
with  a  rare  perfection.  No  one  has  shown  as  much  care  and  science  in  the 
preparation  of  his  works.  Never  did  El  Greco  brush  in  a  canvas,  model  a 
statue,  design  a  plan  for  architecture,  without  first  making  numerous  sketches 
or  projects  or  designs.  We  have,  for  that  matter,  the  proof  in  the  'Conversa- 
tions on  Painting'  by  Pacheco,  which  recounts  that,  having  been  to  see  the 
master  at  Toledo,  this  latter  showed  him  the  ebauches  of  his  pictures,  the 
statuettes  in  terra-cotta  for  his  statues.  The  father-in-law  of  Velasquez  was 
stupefied.  "For,"  he  writes,  "who  would  think  that  Domenico  Greco  made 
studies  for  his  work,  repainted  them  time  and  time  again,  to  the  end  that  he 
might  separate  and  disunite  the  tints  and  thus  give  to  his  canvas  that  look  of 
cruel  daubings  in  order  to  stimulate  a  greater  liberty  of  handling  and  a  greater 
power." 

Let  us  leave  to  the  timorous  Pacheco  any  responsibility  for  his  sayings; 
but  could  one  expect  anything  else  from  the  weak  and  untemperamental, 
petty  master  ?.  .  .  . 

Why  should  Domenikos  Theotokopuli  have  left  Italy  when  he  was  be- 
ginning to  make  himself  known,  where  the  future  smiled  on  him,  pledging 
herself  to  him  under  happy  auspices  ?  On  what  occasion  did  he  leave  the 
Eternal  City,  where  he  could  not  have  lacked  for  friends  and  protectors  ? 
Had  not  the  capital  of  the  world  all  which  should  hold  a  young  and  enthu- 
siastic artist  .i*  Chef  J'ceuvres  were  there  to  be  met  at  every  step,  those  of  past 
civilizations  as  well  as  those  of  the  hardly-ended  Renaissance.  According 
to  the  saying  of  Montaigne,  who  visited  Rome  but  a  little  later,  Rome  was 
then  the  cosmopolitan  city  where  every  stranger  found  himself  at  home,  and 
where  difference  in  nationality  did  not  count  at  all. 

Was  the  young  painter  called  into  Spain  by  Philip  ii  on  Titian's  recommen- 
dation ?    The  sovereign  had  told  Titian  to  send  some  of  his  scholars  to  him. 

[291] 


38  MASTERS     IN    ART 

Or  was  it  suggested  to  El  Greco  to  try  to  win  the  competition  for  the  decora- 
tion of  the  Cathedral  of  Toledo  ?  Or  did  he  come  of  himself,  drawn  by  that 
need  for  novelty  and  for  adventure  which  was  so  common  with  the  artists  of 
past  centuries  ?  Who  knows  ?  All  is  mist  and  shadow  in  these  days  of  El 
Greco's  infancy  and  youth. 

GUSTAVE     GEOFFROY  'LES     MUSEES     D'EUROPE:     MADRID' 

GRECO'S  admiration  for  Titian,  Palma,  Bassano,  Tintoretto,  made  place 
for  a  passionate  liking  for  direct  vision  of  things  and  of  people.  He 
painted  naively,  strongly,  what  he  saw;  and  his  dryness,  his  harshness,  are  of 
a  strange,  new  kind.  He  has  not  given  up  color;  he  shows  it  in  the  light,  and 
he  is  extraordinarily  luminous.  There  is  nothing  sinister;  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  a  hymn  to  light.  The  drawing  is  sometimes  deformed;  the  people  are 
stretched  out  beyond  all  measure.  El  Greco  was  evidently  striving  for  a  dec- 
orative aspect,  and,  like  all  searchers,  he  happened  to  deceive  himself. 

This  stretching-out  came  to  him  through  Italy  from  Tintoretto,  have  I  said  ? 
And  through  Tintoretto  from  Michael  Angelo.  But  one  can  pardon  an  error  in 
a  great,  passionate  artist  so  admirably  gifted  with  skill  in  grouping  figures,  in 
distributing  the  pure  and  greatly  simplified  colorations  of  his  palette;  to  give 
to  all  these  faces  that  expression  of  passion,  of  ecstasy,  of  violence,  and  of 
ravishment. 

Despite  two  absent  chefs  J'csuvre,  one  finds  El  Greco  at  Madrid  with 
both  his  faults  and  his  qualities  which  belong  to  his  anxious  genius.  He  is 
there  with  religious  pictures,  'The  Baptism  of  Christ,'  'The  Crucifixion,' 
'The  Resurrection,'  'Christ  Dead  in  the  Arms  of  the  Father,'  and  one  sees 
with  astonishment  this  religious  painting  of  so  triumphant  an  aspect,  which 
seems  sonorous  with  trumpet-calls  —  these  shadowed  skies,  these  chalky 
lights,  these  little  heads;  and  amid  the  movement  and  the  tumult  are  charm- 
ing expressions,  that  of  the  blonde  Magdalen  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross,  of  a 
Mary  in  blue  and  red,  of  saints,  of  angels,  of  youths,  and  little  maids  with 
baby  faces,  the  mouth  small,  the  nose  tip-tilted,  the  eyes  wide  open. 

You  see  images  of  saints,  St.  Basil,  St.  Francis,  St.  Anthony,  and  St.  Paul, 
like  statues,  or  like  heads  of  statues,  of  worm-eaten  wood,  or  of  moist  and 
mossy  granite.  There  is  something  Gothic  about  Greco.  And  then  if  you 
have  passed  into  the  hall  of  portraits,  you  find  again  people  like  the  spectators 
in  the  'Burial  of  the  Count  of  Orgaz' —  black  pour  points,  white  ruffs,  gray 
faces  with  pointed  beards  and  eyes  which  start  out  from  the  serious  faces. 
Such  are  the  portraits  of  'A  Doctor,'  who  holds  a  book;  of  Don  Rodrigo  Vaz- 
quez, President  of  Castille;  of  him  whom  one  might  call  the  'Man  with  a 
Sword,'  a  young  and  grave  physiognomy,  one  hand  on  the  breast,  the  guard  of 
a  sword  just  visible. 

I  leave  El  Greco  with  the  feeling  that  he  was  before  all  a  painter,  and  that 
the  artist  in  him  was  double:  an  observer,  fond  of  the  sharpest,  the  harshest 
reality;  a  decorator,  ambitious  to  make  light  blaze  from  the  walls. 


[292] 


EL     GRECO  39 

Cije  Woxke  of  €1  <Bxtto 

DESCRIPTIONS    OF    THE    PLATES 
•THE    ANNUNCIATION'  PLATE     I 

AVERY  characteristic  example  of  El  Greco,  of  a  certain  charm,  and  yet 
illustrating  very  clearly  various  of  his  faults.  The  arms  and  heads  are 
of  that  curious,  pulled-out  quality  which  we  have  come  to  associate  with  him; 
but  note,  in  the  left  arm  of  the  angel,  that  the  faults  of  drawing  are  those  of 
exaggeration  rather  than  lack  of  perception;  that  is,  the  contour  is  expressive, 
but  the  thick  parts  of  the  arm  are  made  too  wide  in  relation  to  the  thinner 
parts.  There  is  considerable  knowledge  of  construction  in  the  way  the  wrist 
is  attached  to  the  hand,  only  the  thing  is  done  carelessly. 

The  composition  is  well  balanced  and  original.  Indeed,  it  is  interesting  to 
note  how  far  El  Greco  has  departed  from  the  conventional  arrangement  of 
the  Annunciation  used  by  almost  every  Italian  painter  from.Giotto  to  Da  Vinci. 

'PORTRAIT     OF    CARDINAL    TAVERA'  PLATE    II 

AGAIN  a  most  characteristic  head.  It  illustrates,  among  other  things.  El 
./A.  Greco's  tendency  to  paint  heads  thin  and  long  drawn  out.  In  this  re- 
spect he  was  quite  different  from  his  Venetian  masters,  who,  if  anything,  erred 
on  the  opposite  of  dumpiness. 

This  glabre  and  pallid  face  is  at  first  sight  rather  forbidding.  Yet  there  is 
much  of  interest  in  it.  The  character  is  of  a  peculiar  and  highly  specialized 
type.  El  Greco  was  particularly  successful  in  rendering  sympathetically  the 
character  of  churchmen,  and  this  head  is  no  exception  to  that  rule.  Note  par- 
ticularly the  peculiar  and  specialized  character  of  the  weary  eyes;  the  singu- 
lar mouth,  and  the  long  nose;  also  the  modeling  about  the  temple  and  again 
under  the  cheek-bone  and  about  the  muscles  round  the  mouth. 

The  hand  is  made  with  that  singular  ineptitude  which  at  times  character- 
ized the  Greek. 

•THEASSUMPTIONOFTHEVIRGIN'  PLATEIII 

AVERY  characteristic  example  of  El  Greco  in  that  there  are  admirable 
bits  in  it  and  again  other  pieces  of  deplorably  careless  rendering.  For 
instance,  the  drapery  about  the  Virgin  does  not  impress  one  as  at  all  well  ex- 
pressed, while,  on  the  other  hand,  certain  of  the  heads  appear  remarkably  well 
done.  Note  particularly  the  saint  gazing  upward  and  the  bald  head  leaning 
forward. 

The  composition  may  be  a  little  reminiscent  of  Titian's  'Assumption,'  but 
in  details  is  quite  different.  Its  chief  fault  is  that  the  canvas  is  frankly  divided 
into  two  pictures,  with  no  subtle  binding  together  of  the  two.  As  in  most  of 
El  Greco's  pictures,  the  realistic  heads  in  the  lower  part  are  much  more  suc- 
cessful than  the  more  or  less  idealized  rendering  of  the  upper  half. 

[293] 


40  MASTERS  IN  ART 

'PORTRAIT  OF  CARDINAL  SFORZA  PALLAVICINO'  PLATE  IV 

PAINTED  on  a  rather  coarse  canvas,  apparently  prepared  with  a   red 
ground.    The  handhng  in  the  whites  is  rather  impasto,  apparently  made 
with  oil  paints,  though  possibly  with  tempora  glaze. 

The  composition,  with  its  arrangement  of  head  and  hands,  is  effective,  if 
curious.  Note  that  the  left  hand  holds  two  books.  The  head  is  distinguished 
in  character  and  is  an  evident  likeness,  though  constructed  after  El  Greco's 
peculiar  fashion.  The  chair  and  book,  though  curious  in  drawing,  are  in 
paint  quality  very  much  as  Velasquez  might  have  done  them.  The  technique 
is  quite  direct,  although  one  observes  signs  of  glazing  on  the  mouth,  the  tips 
of  the  fingers,  and  in  some  of  the  shadows.  The  color. quality  of  the  white  and 
black  vestments,  the  greenish  chair,  and  the  brown  background  are  partic- 
ularly fine,  although  the  shadows  of  the  white  are  rather  brownish. 

In  sum,  this  is  one  of  the  finest  of  El  Greco's  portraits.  His  good  qualities 
show  in  it  to  the  best  advantage,  and  his  defects  add  a  pleasing  quaintness. 

'THE     NATIVITY'  "  PLATE     V 

THIS  is  introduced  as  one  of  the  most  extreme  examples  of  El  Greco's  art. 
The  drawing  of  some  of  the  pieces,  as,  for  instance,  the  cherub  in  fore- 
shortening, the  leg  of  the  kneeling  shepherd,  the  side  of  the  Madonna's  head, 
is  unbelievable.  At  the  same  time,  the  group  is  well  composed  and  possibly 
was  the  Plan  type  on  which  like  subjects  by  Ribera  and  by  Murillo  were  built 
up.  Observe  that  the  figures  are  lit  by  radiance  from  the  Infant  Jesus.  This 
idea  may  have  been  borrowed  from  the  famous  *La  Notte'  of  Correggio.  In- 
deed, the  main  lines  of  the  Greek's  composition  are  very  similar  to  that  of  the 
Italian's:  the  lighting  is  imagined  rather  than  studied  from  nature.  It  would 
be  impossible  that  the  face  and  arm  of  the  kneeling  shepherd  should  be  so  lit 
by  light  from  the  Child. 

The  face  of  the  Virgin,  despite  its  singular  drawing,  has  a  certain  charm, 
and  the  head  of  St.  Joseph  is  eminently  Grecoesque,  looking,  indeed,  more 
like  a  fierce  Jeremiah  than  a  meek  Joseph. 

<ST.     BASIL*  PLATE    VI 

THIS  is  one  of  the  figures  of  saints  to  which  Geoffroy  somewhat  flippantly 
refers  as  being  worm-eaten.  Despite  the  excessive  smallness  of  the  head, 
perhaps  because  of  it,  the  figure  is  not  lacking  in  a  certain  severe  dignity.  The 
hands,  again,  though  extremely  small,  are  characteristic,  that  holding  the  staff 
being  perhaps  the  more  successful  of  the  two.  The  landscape  background 
should  be  noted  as  being  exceptionally  fine,  especially  to  the  left  side  of  the 
saint.  It  suggests  the  sort  of  landscape  which  Velasquez  was  later  to  paint, 
and  is  altogether  of  a  different,  more  modern  sentiment  than  the  landscape 
backgrounds  of  El  Greco's  Venetian  masters.  The  embroidery  on  the  vest- 
ments, of  a  singularly  high  degree  of  finish,  is  possibly  the  work  of  an  assistant. 
The  head  of  the  saint,  though  still  characteristic  of  the  painter,  is  one  of  his 
best  constructed  and  most  soberly  painted  performances. 

[294] 


EL     GRECO        [       :%  I      \l'\,*\'',l'<iA\ 

•  PORTRAIT    OF    A    PHYSICIAN'  PLATE     VII 

ANOTHER  of  El  Greco's  long  faces,  but  what  expression  of  character  lies 
.in  the  cold,  pale,  phlegmatic  face!  The  eyes  are  interesting  as  being 
done  in  a  manner  half  way,  as  it  were,  from  the  Venetian  convention  and 
from  Velasquez's  pure  light  and  shade.  The  eye  is,  for  the  matter  of  that,  well 
expressed  in  light  and  shade,  but  the  nuances  of  modeling  in  the  half-light  do 
not  appear  well  expressed.  Titian,  on  the  other  hand,  never  quite  broke 
away  from  the  old  convention  of  drawing  the  eye  like  a  button-hole;  and  while 
his  vision  was  so  acute  that  eventually  he  made  a  good  eye,  one  will  find  in 
studying  one  of  his  heads  painted  in  the  same  position  as  this  that  the  eye  is 
not  so  simply  and  frankly  stated  in  mere  light  and  shade  as  with  El  Greco. 

The  head  is  particularly  well  done,  and  in  its  distinction  and  character  sug- 
gests some  that  Velasquez  later  painted. 

•PORTRAIT    OF    CARDINAL    DON     FERNANDO    NINO     DE     GUEVARA"  PLATE    VIII 

IN  some  respects  the  most  successful,  at  the  least  the  most  complete,  of 
Greco's  portraits.  The  stuffs  are  rendered  with  great  skill.  Note  the  paint- 
ing of  lace,  which  is  done  very  freely  yet  suggestively,  in  manner  more  like 
Velasquez  than  like  the  Venetian  masters.  The  textures  and  quality  of  the 
skirt  and  cape  are  remarkably  rendered.  The  head  is  of  a  peculiar  character, 
which  is  very  well  expressed.  A  slight  expression  of  slyness  may  be  caused  by 
the  eyes  looking  sideways  toward  the  spectator,  although  the  mouth  as  well 
looks  as  if  it  belonged  to  no  simple-minded  priest.  As  to  the  hands,  one,  the 
prelate's  left,  seems  to  have  caused  the  painter  a  good  deal  of  trouble  and  is 
even  now  not  wholly  successful.    The  other  one  is  better. 

•HEADOFAMAN'  PLATEIX 

ONE  of  the  most  successful  of  El  Greco's  single  heads.  The  face  is  full  ot 
character  and  quite  sufficiently  well  drawn.  Note,  however,  that  the 
man's  right  eye  is  considerably  higher  than  his  left.  This  is  a  detail  which 
mediocre  painters  almost  always  get  right,  but  of  which  Greco  apparently  was 
oblivious.  The  edges  of  the  hair  against  the  background  are  very  well  studied 
and  in  a  peculiarly  modern  way;  that  is.  El  Greco,  unlike  his  Venetian  mas- 
ters, apparently  got  his  edges  by  sheer  brushwork,  where  these  latter  would 
have  painted  the  thing  more  or  less  hard  and  then  achieved  their  soft  edge  by 
glazings  and  retouchings. 

The  ruff  is  treated  in  a  broad,  almost  impressionistic,  way,  rather  than  in 
the  somewhat  meticuleux  way  of  Titian. 

•CHRIST    DEAD     IN    THE    ARMS    OF    GOD'  '  PLATE    X 

THIS  is  one  of  the  most  characteristic  of  El  Greco's  compositions,  illustra- 
ting very  well  both  his  merits  and  defects.  The  composition  is  hardly  so 
interesting  as  some  of  his,  yet  it  very  clearly  indicates  the  intention  of  the  pic- 
ture. The  drawing  is  singular,  like  all  of  the  Greek  master's.  It  is  said  that 
he  had  a  defect  of  vision  which  made  him  see  everything  a  little  twisted.  At 
the  same  time,  the  construction  is  well  understood,  showing  the  artist's  close 

[295] 


4'^  .  MASTERSINART 

Study  of  Michael  Angelo.  Bits  like  the  elbow,  the  wrist,  and  the  knee  of  the 
dead  Christ  are  done  with  understanding  and  with  considerable  finesse.  The 
expression  of  the  heads  is  well  indicated,  the  character  of  both  the  principal 
figures  being  well  searched  and  studied. 

A    LIST     OF    EL     GRECo's    PAINTINGS     IN     VARIOUS     GALLERIES 

AUSTRIA.  Vienna:  Portrait  of  a  Young  Man  —  ENGLAND.  London,  National 
x\.  Gallery:  Christ  driving  out  the  Money  Changers  —  Richmond,  Sir  F.  Cook's 
Collection:  Christ  driving  out  the  Money  Changers  —  FRANCE.  Paris,  M.  Chris- 
tian Cherfils:  Genre  pictures.  Boy,  Girl,  and  Monkey  —  Don  Raimondo  de  Ma- 
drazo:  Holy  Family  —  M.  L.  Manzi:  Portrait  —  Prades,  Palais  de  Justice:  Cruci- 
fixion—  GERMANY.  Dresden:  Healing  of  the  Blind  Man  — ITALY.  Naples: 
Julio  Clovio  —  Parma:  Healing  of  the  Blind  Man  —  RUMANIA.  Bucharest:  Mar- 
riage of  the  Virgin  — RUSSIA.  St.  Petersburg:  Alonso  Ercield  — SCOTLAND. 
Glasgow,  McCorkindale  Collection:  The  Nativity  —  SPAIN.  Illescas,  Church 
of  the  Hospital  de  la  Caridad:  Figure  of  Charity;  Coronation  of  the  Virgin;  The 
Birth  of  Our  Lord;  The  Annunciation;  Portrait  of  San  Isidore  —  Madrid,  Don  Ignacio 
Zuloaga:  St.  Francis — Don  Pablo  Borch:  Good  replica  of  the  'Coronation  of  the 
Virgin' — Marquis  de  Casa  Torres:  St.  Sebastian — Marquis  de  Cerralbo:  St. 
Francis  —  Chapter  Hall,  Escorial:  San  Mauric  del  Escorial;  Dream  of  Philip  ii; 
San  Eugenio  and  San  Pedro  —  Prado  Museum:  The  Baptism;  The  Crucifixion;  St. 
Paul;  Christ  dead  in  the  Arms  of  the  Eternal  Father  (Plate  x);  Rodrigo  Vasquez;  St. 
Anthony  of  Padua  —  Sr.  BeruetE:  Christ  driving  out  the  Money  Changers;  Head  of  a 
Man  (Plate  ix);  Portrait  of  a  Physician  (Plate  vii);  St.  Basil  (Plate  vi)  —  Palencia, 
Cathedral:  St.  Sebastian- — ^Toledo,  Cathedral:  El  Espolio  —  Chapel  of  San  Jose: 
St.  Joseph;  The  Coronation  of  the  Virgin;  The  Virgin  and  Child  with  Sta.  Inez  and  Sta. 
Fido;  St.  Martin  de  Tours  on  Horseback  —  Church  of  Sta.  Tome:  Burial  of  the 
Count  of  Orgaz;  Parting  of  Christ  and  the  Virgin  —  Provincial  Museum  :  St.  Bartholo- 
mew; Canon  Antonio  de  Covarrubias;  Don  Diego  de  Covarrubias;  Portrait  of  Cardinal 
Tavera  (Plate  ii)  — UNITED  STATES.  Boston,  Art  Museum:  Portrait  of  Cardinal 
Sforza  Pallavicino  (Plate  iv)  —  Chicago,  Art  Institute:  The  Assumption  (Plate  iii). 


€1  (§xtto  33ibliograpi)p 

A     LIST    OF     THE     PRINCIPAL    BOOKS     AND     MAGAZINE     ARTICLES 
DEALING     WITH     EL    GRECO 

ALEXANDRE,  A,  Histoire  Populaire  de  la  Peinture.  Paris  [1895]  — Bryan.  Dic- 
XA.  tionary  of  Painters  and  Engravers.  London,  1903  —  CoLE,  T.  Old  Spanish  Mas- 
ters. New  York,  1907 — -Cossio,  M.  E.  Greco  —  Gautier,  T.  Voyage  en  Espagne. 
Boston,  1896  —  Geoffroy,  G.  The  Prado.  Paris  [1907] — Justi,  C.  Diego  Velasquez 
and  his  Times.  London,  1889  —  Lefort,  P.  Peinture  Espagnola.  Paris  [1893]  — 
Muther,  R.  History  of  Painting.  New  York,  1907  —  Ricketts,  C.  S.  The  Art  of 
the  Prado.  Boston,  1907  —  Stirling-Maxwell,  Sir  W.  Annals  of  the  Artists  of 
Spain.    London,  1891. 

MAGAZINE    articles 

GAZETTE  DES  BEAUX-ARTS,  1906:  P.  Lafond;  (La)  Chapelle  San  Jose  de 
Toledi  et  ses  peintures  de  Greco.  1907:  P.  Lafond;  Etudes  et  document  sur  le 
Greco.  1908:  P.  Lafond;  Etude  et  documents  sur  le  Greco — Zeitschrift  fur  Bil- 
dende  Kunst,  1897-98:  C.  Justi;  Domenico  Theotocopuli  von  Krete. 

[296] 


MASTERS     IN     ART 


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THE 

MADONNA 

By   Philip   L.    Hale 


A  CRITICAL  analysis  of  the  way  the  master  painters  have  pictured 
tlie  Madonna,  together  with  a  short  historical  sketch  of  the  devel- 
opment of  this  great  religious  art  subject.  The  author,  Mr.  Philip  L. 
Hale,  himself  a  painter,  is  one  of  the  ablest  writers  on  art  in  this  country. 
The  text  is  illustrated  by  twenty  full-page  plates,  a  list  of  which  is  given 
below.  These  plates  are  of  the  highest  quality,  and  in  point  of  depth 
and  richness  of  color  and  clearness  of  detail  are  not  surpassed  by  any 
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No  pains  have  been  spared  to  make  this  a  desirable  acquisition  to  every 
art  lover's  library ;  as  a  gift-book  it  is  especially  appropriate. 

LIST     OF     PLATES 

The  Sistine  Madonna Raphael  Madonna  with  the  Cherries    ....     Titian 

Royal  Gallery,  Dresden  Imperial  Gallery,  Vienna 

Madonna  of  the  Chair Raphael  Madonna  of  the  Pesaro  Family    .     .     .    Titian 

Pitti  Palace,  Florence  Church  of  the  Frari,  Venice 

Madonna  of  the  House  of  Alba      .      Raphael  The  Nativity  ("The  Night")  .     .     .  Correggio 

The  Hermitage,  St.  Petershury  Royal  Gallery,  Dresden 

Virgin  of  the  Rocks    .     .       Leonardo  da  Vinci  The  Meyer  Madonna  Holbein  the  Younger 

Louvre,  Paris  Grand-Ducal  Palace,  Darmstadt 

The  Assumption  of  the  Virgin      .     .     .     Titian  The  Madonna  of  Castelfranco       .    .  Giorgionk 

The  Academy,  Venice  Castelfranco  Cathedral 

St.  Anne,  the  Virgin,  and  the  Christ-  The  Madonna  of  the  Two  Trees  .     .     .  Bellini 

Child Leonardo  da  Vinci  Academy,   Venice 

Louvre,  Paris  The  Vow  of  Louis  XHI Ingres 

The  Virgin  Adoring  the  Christ-Child  Cathedral,  Montauban 

Correggio  Coronation  of  the  Virgin    ....  Botticelli 
Uffizi  Gallery,  Florence  Uffizi  Gallery,  Florence 

Madonna  of  the  Sack Del  Sarto  Madonna  and  Child  with  Two  Angels, 

Church  of  the  Annunziata,  Florence  Fra  Filippo  Lippi 

The  Immaculate  Conception     .     .     .       Murillo  Uffizi  Gallery,  Florence 

Louvre,  Paris  The  Madonna  and  Three  Dominican  Saints, 

Virgin  and  Child Crivelli  Tiepolo 

Br  era  Gallery,  Milan  Church  of  the  Gesuati,  Venice 

Price,  boated  and  express  prepaid,  $1.00 

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